Business briefs

Published 9:54 pm, Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Freepoint Commodities, through its subsidiary Freepoint Metals & Concentrates, said that it closed a structured debt finance transaction with Brazahav Resources to fund the development and expansion of Brazahav's recently acquired Salinas Gold Mine, located near Pocone, Mato Grosso, Brazil. In conjunction with the financing, Freepoint Metals agreed to purchase 100 percent of the offtake of gold and silver derived from the Salinas mine. This is the first investment made by Freepoint Metals in the metals sector since being acquired by Freepoint Commodities in June 2012 from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

December numbers up for brokers group

Interactive Brokers Group reported its Electronic Brokerage monthly performance metrics for December. Highlights for the month included 395,000 Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs), 6 percent higher than prior year and 10 percent lower than prior month. December also included the ending of customer equity of $32.9 billion, 31 percent higher than prior year and 2 percent higher than prior month, the ending of customer margin loan balances of $9.8 billion, 40 percent higher than prior year and percent higher than prior month, and the ending of customer credit balances of $20.5 billion, 23 percent higher than prior year and flat to prior month. The month also brought 210,000 customer accounts, 11 percent higher than prior year and flat to prior month, and 431 annualized average cleared DARTs per customer account.

Blyth repurchases open-market shares

Blyth indicated that it has repurchased shares in the open market under its share repurchase authorization. During its fourth fiscal quarter, and subsequent to the finalization and disclosure of its new agreement with the ViSalus founders, the company repurchased 411,336 shares, or approximately 2.5% of its 17 million shares outstanding. The company has 1.6 million shares remaining in its existing authorization.